Itay’s president sounds apocalyptic warning on Europe

FLORENCE — The “wind of war is blowing” and Europe’s edifice is shaking, said Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella, in a dramatic speech Thursday morning warning of the dangers of retreat from European integration.

His address comes at a volatile moment in Italy’s domestic politics. The top vote-getters in elections earlier this year, the populist 5Star Movement and right-wing League, are rushing against an ultimatum from Mattarella to form a coalition government this week — or see the president call a new election.

Mattarella didn’t address the impasse directly in his speech here, and he didn’t lay his cards out on the table whether he would attempt to scotch a coalition. But his message was a thinly veiled threat to the duo that, though residing on different parts of the traditional political spectrum, has questioned Italy’s future membership in the eurozone and sounded skeptical on the EU itself.

Italy’s political problems are infectious, the 76-year-old Sicilian suggested, and threaten stability across Europe. Mattarella had harsh words for everyone: the EU, national political parties and individual Italians. In a dangerous global context, “the building of Europe is shaking,” and needs “maintenance work,” he said.

“The European project has lost its ability to meet the expectations of large portions of the population,” he said at a conference in the hills outside Florence, while criticizing his citizens for seeking “refuge in a purely domestic dimension, nurturing an illusion that their problems can be dealt with at only the national level.”

Instead of turning to the nation state, Mattarella said “irreversible unity” at the European level is “urgent.”

Mattarella has assumed center-stage in Italy’s torturous post-election negotiations about a potential coalition administration. He has the power to block a minority government, but can’t block a coalition that would have the votes in parliament.

If the anti-establishment 5Stars and the right-wing League come to power, together or somehow alone, it would be the first time a founding member country of the EU has been led by populist and anti-EU forces.

The conference at the European University Institute (EUI) — an EU-funded school of 800 researchers and doctorate students dedicated to improving EU integration — is billed as the EU’s annual state of the union gathering. Its theme this year is “solidarity in Europe.”

Mattarella requested that students of the university, not Italian political bigwigs or security, take up the first rows of the audience to hear his speech, said a spokesperson for the university.

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peter lintner

Eurozone breakup is inevitable. It will not breakup because of Salvini or DiMaio, it will breakup because it´s unworkable. You cant have a currency union, in which one part have a historic low unemployment 4-5%, while other have 20+%, and 40-50% of youth unemployment, you cannot have a currency union in which one part have debt at 60% of GDP and declining, while other have double of that 130% and rising. It´s not called a working currency union.

And you can put the blame for this mess firmly at Brussels, their arrogance and ignorance when creating this monster. No wonder, italian president is talking about apocalypse. When you create a doomsday machine, apocalypse is the only possible outcome.

Posted on 5/10/18 | 12:42 PM CEST

glasspix 1

Irreversible unity… Matarella knows such a concept can only be achieved by erasing national borders and identities and melting down the population into a schizophrenic global mess that has nothing in common, except for an unelected tyrannical elite controlling every aspect of their lives. The importation of large Muslim bodies from the world’s conflict zones is the perfect soil for the project, they are capable of dissolving individual societies within decades and accepting the rule of a brutal leadership, just like the ones they leave behind.

Posted on 5/10/18 | 12:52 PM CEST

Irene Duym

Sorry but if apocalypse emerges, it will originate from DJT’s assertions and attitude. I suppose his devoted VP who looks at him as if saw the messie, would pray for it to come.

Posted on 5/10/18 | 1:30 PM CEST

Irene Duym

Well, let Italexit occur: how do they think they will survive?

Posted on 5/10/18 | 1:31 PM CEST

peter lintner

glasspix 1

“The importation of large Muslim bodies from the world’s conflict zones is the perfect soil for the project, they are capable of dissolving individual societies within decades and accepting the rule of a brutal leadership, just like the ones they leave behind.”

Of course, that´s the goal. But have a simple idea of eurocrats ever worked? If they start bringing in 10s of millions of muslims, the only possible outcome is a civil war. The two civilisations are incompatible. Is there a single country in the world in which christians and muslims live side by side in peace? The history of contacts between christians and muslims is the history of war.

European integration worked initially and was bringing benefits, but once the main goal became creating an artificial nation and superstate benefits go in reverse. Both, eurozone and EU are heading in same direction – disintegration.

Posted on 5/10/18 | 1:31 PM CEST

peter lintner

Irene Duym

“Well, let Italexit occur: how do they think they will survive?”

My guess. The same way they survived in the last two and a half milenia? Besides, if Italy goes, the whole edifice falls apart.

Posted on 5/10/18 | 1:33 PM CEST

Antoine uk

Just wished a UK politician had said this before the Referendum. No time for EU to divide itself…so sad….
We can only improve together

Posted on 5/10/18 | 3:37 PM CEST

Darius Na

The only kind of “apocalypse” would be for decrepit EU apparatchiks and their left wing “hunger games” social order.

Posted on 5/10/18 | 4:08 PM CEST

Joke V

Looks like ther’s more wisdom In the brain of a 76 year old Sicilian, than in the added up grey cells of all the .uk

Posted on 5/10/18 | 4:12 PM CEST

Yellow Submarine

It looks like the UK will soon have some company in the naughty corner.

Posted on 5/10/18 | 4:29 PM CEST

Stan

@Yellow Submarine

😀 …in the naughty corner – made me chuckle that.

Posted on 5/10/18 | 5:12 PM CEST

Stan

@Antoine uk
“Just wished a UK politician had said this before the Referendum. No time for EU to divide itself…so sad….”

They did many times, half the people beleived it and the other half didn’t.

Posted on 5/10/18 | 5:21 PM CEST

Anthony Chambers

The danger is a political federal Europe. Hopefully it will be stopped before it does something really dangerous.

Posted on 5/10/18 | 5:29 PM CEST

maciek maciek

…Mattarella said “irreversible unity” at the European level is “urgent.”
Italians voted for less EU just two months ago but Mattarella wants EU kolkhoz for them, and urgently.
He must be another marxist in disguise. It’s good Europeans can see them unveiled.

Posted on 5/10/18 | 5:56 PM CEST

Deplor Ables

By the way, soon even the Swedes will vote, right?

Posted on 5/10/18 | 6:08 PM CEST

Henk Crop

@ Peter Lintner, @ Glasspix 1. Well put in both comments.

Posted on 5/10/18 | 6:13 PM CEST

Alan

Something has certainly put the wind up him….

Posted on 5/10/18 | 6:36 PM CEST

Henk Crop

M. said that: irreversible unity at the European level is urgent. That is correct. But as long as the Brussel elite relentlessly try to force upon the people the Federal state that is bound to fail. People know how the USSR, and East Block countries, finished. When Juncker presented his plans in his State of the Union. These were rejected by 97 % of the people in the Netherlands. In a poll published in Open Source this week, only 18 % of the Germans wanted a Federal State, 29 % wanted to return to the Economic Union, 39 % keep the status quo, the rest felt that the EU had mainly disadvantages.

Solutions: a smaller and more transparent EU, restructuring of the EU top/elite, solution for the sustainability of the Euro, solid protection of the EU borders and deportation of illegal immigrants.

Posted on 5/10/18 | 6:50 PM CEST

contango one

@ peter lintner

“name a country in the world where christians and muslem leave side by side in peace?”

you’re posing the wrong question partner

howbout: “name a country in the world where muslems and anyone else live side by side in peace?”

india offers a good historical example; even thailand the most benign n pacifist of countries has a small muslem minority in the south that throws bombs stirs violence decades now